This will be the last night we can do this. Tomorrow, the City’s open fire ban goes into effect. The kids will be the ones most affected – no more toasted marshmallows, no more charred wieners, no more waving glowing sticks in the air.

We can still sit around and drink beer and tell lies in the dark. Somehow, I don’t think that an extension cord and a radiant heater are going to bring back nostalgia.

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

23 thoughts on “Flash Fiction #180”

They may commit suicide by diving into my mug of hot chocolate. 🙂
Years ago, my Dad dug a shallow pit in the back yard and ringed it with 4 concrete blocks. When we visited my parents, we could enjoy a campfire in the dark, and the minimal smoke kept mosquitoes away.
Then the town ordered no more open fires. I fabricated a square of open metal grating, standing 6 inches above the ground on steel legs. Functionally it changed nothing, but legally qualified as a lid. Ahhh…. the good old days. 😀

I would have thought that it would be balanced out by that hot air factory near BrainRants’ place. Thai’s why there’s no glaciers in the Appalachians. I guess you’re too far from it to benefit.
That thing got smoked up on BC Gold, now that pot is legal in Canada, and wandered in your direction way out west. Now it’s stumbling back towards me. 😯

I have childhood memories of late-Sept./Oct. when entire small towns had the constant, delicious aroma of burning leaves. Then, increasing allergies and stupidity took that away.
The idiot next door, a Presbyterian minister, spent a Saturday afternoon clearing every leaf off his property. He raked them onto the town-owned boulevard, piled them around a creosote-treated, wooden power pole which supplied electricity to the small hospital across the street, set it ablaze like a Rajah’s funeral pyre…. and went inside for supper.
If I hadn’t quickly dragged out our garden hose, the entire neighborhood would have gone dark. Maybe ‘the good old days’ weren’t so good – but I still miss them. 🙂

It was the first, but not the only time as a child, that I saw just how unthinkingly DUMB some adults could be. The next year, just before I turned 13, I met an American tourist and his family, who had come to my Great Lake coastal town – to go skiing…. on Labor Day weekend, because – you know – Canada has snow. 😯

Oh, that’s already happened. If there’s a wisp of enjoyment, there’s some self-appointed policeman telling us that we shouldn’t/can’t do it, saving us from ourselves and any temptation, whether we want it or need it. Canada’s young Prime Minister, Prince Trudeau II is a sad example. He’s not a leader. He’s not even a politician. He’s a social engineer. 👿 I’d trade you him and his society butterfly wife for Donald and Melania, any day. 😦

Oh no you don’t! I’m not a loving and adoring fan of The Donald, but I admire him for the fact that he’s still standing after 2+ years of continuous fire from all sides. He really is trying to keep his promises.

So many things that we all grew up with, that have changed entirely, or been banned and are gone. No doubt, some of it is for the betterment overall, BUT I believe some essential and magical things have been lost in the process. Your story really got me thinking. We may not agree on politics (from comments), but methinks we’re aging at the same rate, and share many of the same childhood memories. Lovely piece, with some humor too.